NME, New Musical Express to close.

[adap2it]

NME, The New Musical Express in printed form, is no longer after this Friday. A sad day for me...I started buying it in the 50's, and subscribed to it up until the early 70's. It was my source of musical information, discovering many of the musicians that I hold dear, including YES & KING CRIMSON.

RIP NME

[miamiscot]

That sucks.

[mozo-pg]

Too bad.

[GuitarGeek]

There's a Genesis documentary where one of the band members mentions "the NME", and I at first thought he was saying "The Enemy", until I realized he was talking about New Musical Express. I always thought The Enemy would make a great name for a music publication, especially when you think about how snotty British music critics tend to be (Nick Kent's infamous Pink Floyd review from 1974, being an obvious example).

[adap2it]

There were basically 2 music publications..The NME & The Melody Maker. NME was more pop & the MM was more Jazz oriented, although there was healthy portion in both. They were very similar and music people tended to read one or the other. Both had critics, but I believe that the MM was the more feared. Live music venues were posted every week so you could see who was playing where, and generally there was music every night. I did subscribe, even when I emigrated to Canada in '66, I got an overseas subscription, which meant receiving them 4 at a time every month. They came by sea, so most of them were a couple of months old when I got to read them. It didn't matter much as it only meant that the music charts were old and by this time I was losing interest in pop.

[moecurlythanu]

"To hell with friends, and NMEs, they only write those things to tease."

[rcarlberg]

Christ, I thought NME folded two decades ago.

[JKL2000]

I’m surprised either was still around! Used to buy both when I used to make the NYC record store rounds but that was ages ago. RIP music press...

[GuitarGeek]

I thought NME folded two decades ago.

You might be thinking of Melody Maker, which folded in 2000. According to Wikipedia, it "merged" with NME.

I knew about Melody Maker and NME because being a music geek, I'd sometimes see mention of either in various books about bands and musicians. I remember Pete Townshend mentioning MM in a book called A Decade Of The Who, as one example. I think one of the local record stores I frequented carried NME back in the late 80's/early 90's, but I never read it (I was too busy buying used vinyl, didn't have money to spend on magazines from the UK).

[ThomasKDye]

Who will tell us how much prog sucks NOW?

[JJ88]

The reasons for its move to being free IMHO was that around 10-15 years ago. it had narrowed to a ridiculous extent, to basically cover indie-pop bands of a certain type. It's OK for a specialist publication like Kerrang! (which is still around!) to do that but that's what it's always done, covered metal. By contrast NME threw its eggs in one basket because it was fashionable. And when those particular indie-pop bands started to flop, so did the publication. They didn't know where to go then. And now it's essentially over.

Who will tell us how much prog sucks NOW?

This is what I never understood about the NME. If they wanted to elbow one form a music for another then fine- it is the 'New Musical Express' after all so younger, upcoming bands should be prioritised. But they continued to write about older bands and their fans in a sneering, 'punching down', pseudo-iconoclastic way, which I loathe.

[Trane]

NME, The New Musical Express in printed form, is no longer after this Friday. A sad day for me...I started buying it in the 50's, and subscribed to it up until the early 70's. It was my source of musical information, discovering many of the musicians that I hold dear, including YES & KING CRIMSON.

RIP NME

Just how old are you, to have bought NME during the 50's??

Christ, I thought NME folded two decades ago.

surely you think of MM

Who will tell us how much prog sucks NOW?

main reason why I won't care if they disappear altogether (though the OP says in printed form >> paper copy)... Not that I've cared for the Weekly Brutish Musical Press since the early 80's (when I more or less dropped pop and rock for jazz)

I preferred MM and Sounds , but my fave of the three folded first.

[per anporth]

The reasons for its move to being free IMHO was that around 10-15 years ago. it had narrowed to a ridiculous extent, to basically cover indie-pop bands of a certain type. It's OK for a specialist publication like Kerrang! (which is still around!) to do that but that's what it's always done, covered metal. By contrast NME threw its eggs in one basket because it was fashionable. And when those particular indie-pop bands started to flop, so did the publication. They didn't know where to go then. And now it's essentially over.

I recall NME getting involved in an anti-hip hop thing sometime towards the end of the 80s, which bordered on racism. They could only ever really like dance music if it were filtered through the dismal lens of "Madchester" acts like the Happy Mondays & The Stone Roses.

When I was of an age to be buying music mags, I started with MM, then moved over to Sounds in the late 70s & early 80s. There were always copies of NME lying our flat when I was at Uni, but mostly, the (over-)writing was too much like hard work, especially when made even more unreadable when the typeset was printed over saturated duo-chrome back images. But Sounds, even though it became infradig, was always more ecumenical in its musical coverage.

[everyday]

I started getting the music papers in the late 70s / early 80s. NME hated prog - you had to be punk/new wave or The Smiths to get a good mention in it. Sounds was the one to read if you liked prog (Hugh Fielder was one of their main writers).

[adap2it]

[QUOTE=Trane;786053]Just how old are you, to have bought NME during the 50's??

I'm 77, and will be 78 in May.

[adap2it]

I started getting the music papers in the late 70s / early 80s. NME hated prog - you had to be punk/new wave or The Smiths to get a good mention in it. Sounds was the one to read if you liked prog (Hugh Fielder was one of their main writers).

But it wasn't always that way...The fact that you started getting NME in the late 70's / early 80's was the reason you felt that way. NME was very supportive of any genre that help them sell papers, it was a business after all.

NME_1972-01-08.jpgNME_1972-01-22.jpg

[adap2it]

I started getting the music papers in the late 70s / early 80s. NME hated prog - you had to be punk/new wave or The Smiths to get a good mention in it. Sounds was the one to read if you liked prog (Hugh Fielder was one of their main writers).

But it wasn't always that way...The fact that you started getting NME in the late 70's / early 80's was the reason you felt that way. NME was very supportive of any genre that help them sell papers, it was a business after all.

NME_1972-01-08.jpgNME_1972-01-22.jpg

[Halmyre]

The reasons for its move to being free IMHO was that around 10-15 years ago. it had narrowed to a ridiculous extent, to basically cover indie-pop bands of a certain type. It's OK for a specialist publication like Kerrang! (which is still around!) to do that but that's what it's always done, covered metal. By contrast NME threw its eggs in one basket because it was fashionable. And when those particular indie-pop bands started to flop, so did the publication. They didn't know where to go then. And now it's essentially over.



This is what I never understood about the NME. If they wanted to elbow one form a music for another then fine- it is the 'New Musical Express' after all so younger, upcoming bands should be prioritised. But they continued to write about older bands and their fans in a sneering, 'punching down', pseudo-iconoclastic way, which I loathe.

Yes, by contrast, John Peel always championed new music but he rarely if ever harped on about how irrelevant the old guard were.

[thedunno]

As a Cardiacs fan: not a big loss.

[Steve983]

Not surprising. I never liked it anyway.

[Luckie]

It became less relevant to me as it started to cover less of the music I loved (Melody Maker held out a bit longer). It was a great read in the 1970s, pre-Pistols. Occasionally infuriating, but often enlightening, sometimes funny (see top strapline on the cover below). The unknown Sex Pistols started touring the week before this Springsteen edition.



Just a few weeks later the NME reviews the Pistols, things begin to change, bandwagons are jumped on.

[adap2it]

It became less relevant to me as it started to cover less of the music I loved (Melody Maker held out a bit longer). It was a great read in the 1970s, pre-Pistols. Occasionally infuriating, but often enlightening, sometimes funny (see top strapline on the cover below). The unknown Sex Pistols started touring the week before this Springsteen edition.



Just a few weeks later the NME reviews the Pistols, things begin to change, bandwagons are jumped on.

Like I said, It was just a business...but just to re-iterate, when I started buying the NME, it was the only source of musical info. There was, more or less, only pop and very little music of limited appeal. Reading some comments about NME not liking some genre's was a much later thing, which I do understand. However, I am old enough to have been witness to the emergence of music for youth and the NME was a part of that. So really, it's an age thing...

[Luckie]

Like I said, It was just a business...but just to re-iterate, when I started buying the NME, it was the only source of musical info. There was, more or less, only pop and very little music of limited appeal. Reading some comments about NME not liking some genre's was a much later thing, which I do understand. However, I am old enough to have been witness to the emergence of music for youth and the NME was a part of that. So really, it's an age thing...

Absolutely agree. It's only natural that a weekly publication aimed at young people should keep its ear to the ground, and God knows some of my favourite bands would soon start to run out of steam. The paper became over-politicized and backbiting later.

[adap2it]

It was through the NME that I learned about KING CRIMSON at Hyde Park, opening act for the ROLLING STONES. The accolades were too great to ignore, so I picked up ITCOTCK and the rest is history. I was already into Prog, having experienced THE NICE, open for BRIAN AUGER in '68. KC was a shock to my, then youthful system, I was completely blown away!

NP: KING CRIMSON LIVE IN HYDE PARK 1969

[Luckie]

The final cover of the final freebie, lest anyone have any illusions about the way it's been for a long time:



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-opinion.html